Pecola Race

In the course of The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove has shown signs of low self esteem. She would always be the one to compare herself to something she admires to be beautiful. Perhaps, sometimes problems surround her get a little too much, she has not yet realized the fog will clear up. For example in the autumn chapter, a quote has said “Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would only see what there was to see: the eyes of other people.” There is no such thing as a “Pecola’s point of view”. She lives off of people's judgements and believe physical appearance is all there is to a person. Her desire to be beautiful is not having attractive long black hair and golden skin color, but blonde hair with a white pigmentation. Which causes her to dream and want even more.

Pecola evaluated herself ugly, and wanted to have a pair of blue eyes so that every problem could be solved. Pecola was an African-American and lived in a family with problems. Her father ran away because of crime, her brother left because of their fighting parents, and was discriminated simply because she has dark-skin. Pecola is a passive person. She is almost destroyed because of her violent father, Cholly Breedlove, who raped her own daughter after drinking. Because of this, Pecola kept thinking about her goal- to reach the standard of beauty. However, she was never satisfied with it. Pecola believed once she become beautiful, fighting between her parents would no longer happen, her brother would come back, and her father would no long be a rapist. No problem would exist anymore.

The desire to feel beautiful has never been more in demand, yet so impossible to achieve. In the book “The Bluest Eye”, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the story of two black families that live during the mid-1900’s. Even though slavery is a thing of the past, discrimination and racism are still a big issue at this time. Through the whole book, characters struggle to feel beautiful and battle the curse of being ugly because of their skin color. Throughout the book Pecola feels ugly and does not like who she is because of her back skin. She believes the only thing that can ever make her beautiful is if she got blue eyes. Frieda, Pecola, Claudia, and other black characters have been taught that the key to being beautiful is by having white skin. So by being black, this makes them automatically ugly. In the final chapter of the book, the need to feel beautiful drives Pecola so crazy that she imagines that she has blue eyes. She thinks that people don’t want to look at her because they are jealous of her beauty, but the truth is they don’t look at her because she is pregnant. From the time these black girls are little, the belief that beauty comes from the color of their skin has been hammered into their mind. Mrs. Breedlove and Geraldine are also affected by the standards of beauty and the impossible goal to look and be accepted by white people. Throughout “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison uses the motif of beauty to portray its negative effect on characters.

Initially, as I read this quote, I began to sympathize with Pecola and the plight she faces as an African American female. This is the first time in the novel we are exposed to the desire Pecola vehemently prays for daily, this desire being blue eyes. The reason I sympathized for the girl beyond the fact that attaining blue eyes for her would be impossible, is because she blames her blue-lacking eye color, or her ugliness as she classifies it as, as a way to justify everything that has gone wrong in her life. Take, for instance, Cholly, her dad, and her mother, Mrs. Breedlove’s fights. Even though their fights arise from the problems they have between themselves, Pecola continues to believe that her ugliness has struck her with not only undesirable

Toni Morrison tells us why it’s important to stay with your family and not to leave and how a family can change one thing in life. Toni Morrison’s progress of the differences between the main characters’ families, houses, and attitudes toward society’s belief in a white standard of beauty reveals what allows Claudia to grow and survive and inhibits Pecola from doing the same. It is a novel of initiation concerning a victimized adolescent Black girl Pecola Breedlove, who is obsessed by the White standard of beauty and longing fora pair of blue eyes. Why does she long for blue eyes?

Pecola Breedlove is young black girl who believes she is ugly and longs for blue eyes. She believes the blue eyes that she adores on Shirley Temple are central to attaining beauty which will bring love and joy to her life. She believes this beauty and love will end the incessant fighting between

Pecola Breedlove, is an eleven-year-old black girl whom the story revolves around. She is abused by almost everyone in the novel and eventually suffers being raped by her father, Cholly Breedlove. Pecola's experiences, however, are not typical of all black girls who have to grow up in a hostile society. But who is to blame? One could easily argue that it was Mr. and Mrs. Breedlove. But who is to blame for how they treat their child? The white supremacy is the main cause of Cholly’s past, Pecola’s rape and the psychological mindset the mother is in. Pauline is Pecola's mother, and her character allows the reader to see how cultural conceptions of beauty can play themselves out in a more affectionate, but still unfortunate, form than Pecola's

There are many themes that seem to run throughout this story. Each theme and conflict seems to always involve the character of Pecola Breedlove. There is the theme of finding an identity. There is also the theme of Pecola as a victim. Of all the characters in the story we can definitely sympathize with Pecola because of the many harsh circumstances she has had to go through in her lifetime. Perhaps her rape was the most tragic and dramatic experience Pecola had experiences, but nonetheless she continued her life. She eliminates her sense of ugliness, which lingers in the beginning of the story, and when she sees that she has blue eyes now she changes her perspective on life. She believes that these eyes have been given

At the bottom of page 190 of, “The Bluest Eye”, Pecola Breedlove’s pregnancy is pondered by the narrator, Claudia, who is sympathetic to Pecola, because no one around her wants her baby to live. Pecola and her family are deemed ugly by society and her baby is also thought to be ugly before anyone ever gets a chance to see it. In our world, skin color is still a factor in what makes someone beautiful. Darker skin has been seen as undesirable and Pecola struggles throughout the book with this fact. Claudia challenges these preexisting standards of beauty in this excerpt by not only wanting the child to live but by seeing that it is beautiful, despite not meeting the blonde haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned image that others see as the only image of true beauty.

For one year, Pecola prays that her eyes will turn blue. Being a black little girl in a society that idolizes blonde-haired blue-eyed beauty, Pecola thinks she is ugly. Pecola stares into the mirror trying to find exactly were the ugliness comes from. She sympathizes for the dandelions because she knows what it is like to disliked. Pecola states that "they are ugly[,] [because] they are weeds" (50). She finds beauty in the weeds, because she thinks that people see her as a weed. A new little girl, named Maureen Peal, comes to Claudia and Frieda's school. Maureen is popular for her looks, which people see as beautiful. She has lighter skin and eyes than most of the other children, and everyone adores her because of this. She is looked upon as beautiful because her characteristics are somewhat more "white" than other black people's. This causes many to be jealous of her. However, Claudia and Frieda are not jealous. They see through the standards placed on beauty, and if Maureen is what is beautiful, this means that they are not beautiful according to society.

This obsession further emphasizes Pecola’s desire to be white, just like Shirley. Along with her obsession, Pecola has the mind set that if she were prettier then maybe her parents would not fight as often, increasing her desire to be white. This thought is similar to other children of abusive parents; they blame themselves for what they wish to be better. After her final inhumane experience, Pecola cannot even comprehend what has happened to her. When she walks through the town she believes everyone is staring at her because she finally got her wish of blue eyes, which is not the reason at all.

Pecola’s peers in school, mainly the girls, would find ways of mocking the boys through her ugliness by shouting phrases like, “Bobby loves Pecola Breedlove! Bobby loves Pecola Breedlove!” (46) an embarrassment for both parties involved. When it comes to the different bystanders, their reaction is full of laughter with no sense of comfort. Additionally, one would think that the adults around Pecola would give her some justice but it was the opposite. “They tried never to glance at her, and called on her only when everyone was required to respond” (46). The actions of the teachers further show how Pecola is received in her community since stereotypically teachers should be the most accepting members, but even they follow suit, avoiding Pecola and who she is. Altogether, it was not just Pecola planting seeds internally telling herself how ugly she is but it came from many other people, some of which are respectable figures around

Pecola convinces herself that her eyes are now blue, making her beautiful in society’s eyes, but combined with her rape, the effects are even more disastrous than before. Fitting the standards of beauty and her rape has literally destroyed Pecola’s sanity. She “step[s] over into madness” as she loses her mind at the hands of society, talking to thin air and believing that she has blue eyes in an attempt to save herself from the horrors of society (206). In addition, people see her spending her days “flail[ing] her arms like a bird in an eternal, grotesquely futile effort to fly” and “walking up and down, up and down, her head jerking to the beat of a drummer so distant only she could hear” (204). Pecola, “a little black girl [who] yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl,” suffers at the hand of society and its rejection towards her, driving her into the deepest pits of despair and self-loathing (204).

Internalized racism, a hidden racism, affected the minds of many people. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola hated herself for not living up to the standards of beauty. Near the beginning of the book, the narrator comments, “It occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held pictures, and knew the sights-if those eyes were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different... If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too.” (The Bluest Eye 46).

Given the societal view of whiteness as a standard of beauty, both Maureen Peal and Pecola Breedlove struggle with distorted self-perceptions and self-hatred. Ultimately able to project both her hatred and her insecurities elsewhere, Maureen is able to bloom despite adversity. Pecola, however, internalizes the hatred at the hands of others and is left only to wither.